Hunters and the conservation and management of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)

White-tailed deer are widely distributed in North America and for at least 10,000 years have been important to human beings for food, clothing, and tools. Market hunting and habitat changes in the 1800s caused a precipitous decline in the number of white-tailed deer in North America. Hunters acted to restore deer populations. By promoting and helping to enforce hunting regulations, transplanting deer, and funding conservation and management programs, hunters were the primary reason deer populations grew during the 1900s from 500,000 to nearly 30 million. Today white-tailed deer are the most popular big game animal in North America and hunters continue to fund deer management and research. Hunters help wildlife agencies to manage white-tailed deer populations within ecological and cultural carrying capacity by harvesting deer. Thus, hunters, with their interest in viable deer populations, are integral to the conservation and management of white-tailed deer in North America.     

Alternatives to pesticides in Southeastern United States

A critical review of alternatives to the use of pesticides in agricultural practice in the Southeastern United States is presented. The methods, their stage of development and case histories are cited.     

On fire service in the world

In this paper, regression model analysis of data shows that United States cities have more fires and more fire fighters per capita but fewer fire fighters per fire than do foreign cities.     

International comparison of fire loss

This article provides comparative estimates of fire loss experience in various developed nations of the world. Strong relationships have been shown, but causality has not been demonstrated. The findings demand further investigation. Note: The investigations reported in this paper were supported by the United States Fire administration, National Fire Data Center under Grants NFPCA-76023 and USFA-79065. Points of view or opinions expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the United States Fire Administration.     

Protecting water and wastewater utilities from cyber‐physical threats

Recent events have highlighted the need to address cybersecurity threats to systems supporting critical infrastructure and federal information systems which are evolving and growing. These threats have become ubiquitous in the United States, and throughout the world. Many information and communications technology (ICT) devices and other components are interdependent so that disruption of one component may have a negative, cascading effect on others. In the United States, the Federal role in cyber‐security has been debated for more than a decade but creating a policy is complicated because in the United States, State and local governments are the major institutions responsible for providing services to their populations. It is important that critical infrastructure such as Publically Owned Treatment Works (POTWs) and Public Water Systems (PWSs) adopt suitable countermeasures to prevent or minimise the consequences of cyber‐attacks. This paper discusses both technological and procedural techniques that can be used to protect against cyber‐threats.     

城市边缘区生境保护规划与管控:美国圣克拉拉谷地的经验

城市边缘区自然生境的环境胁迫是城市化造成的突出问题,生境保护早在30多年前就受到发达国家与地区的高度重视。美国的物种保护经历了特定物种实体保护和重要生态斑块保护,最后回到物种赋存生境保护,可见生境保护的重要性。在增强保护规划与提升管控实效方面,中国还有待发掘系统的应对方案。美国生境保护规划起步时间早、管理体系完善且能充分协调生境保护与建设发展的关系,对我国城市地区全覆盖规划,特别是对提升城市边缘区的生态环境保护实效与复合服务能力具有极高的借鉴价值。文章采用文献梳理及案例研究的方法,从保护规划制定、开发项目管控和环境影响评估三个方面剖析美国生境保护的思路和管控方法,并提出通过深度链接高层规划、审批管控流程与环境影响评估的适应性用地布局规划,及"硬-软件"要素结合的管控方法,来应对我国城市边缘区环境保护与管控中存在的问题。     

Protecting Lives and Property in the Wildland–Urban Interface: Communities in Montana and Southern California Adopt Australian Paradigm

Threats to people and property in the wildland–urban interface have taken on global proportions. It is becoming increasingly rare to have a wildland fire incident that does not involve people and their homes. In addition to Australia and North America, people have died in interface fires in Europe, Africa, and Asia, including 212 people who died in the devastating forest fires in northeastern China in May 1987. The prevailing interface model is one that attempts to evacuate people away from fire areas to get them out of harm’s way. This traditional approach in the U.S. has been preferred by law enforcement agencies and fire services. The problem with this model is that evacuation warnings are often late to non-existent, leading to the deaths of interface residents entrapped by fires on highways as they try to escape. For example, 16 people suffered lethal burns when the 2003 Cedar and Paradise Fires in California overran them as they were trying to evacuate. Two communities in the United States have adopted variations of the Australian model of Prepare, Go Early, or Stay and Defend (P/GE/SD). Officials in the Painted Rocks Fire District, Montana, and Rancho Santa Fe, California, were interviewed to determine how the Australian model was being implemented. Two of the authors have firsthand experience with these two case examples. P/GE/SD has been tested successfully at both locations. The Australian model, however, is under review following the Black Saturday fires of February 2009 in Victoria, Australia. The objective of this paper is to present specific ideas that can be used to reform and improve fire policy, planning, and performance in the Wildland–Urban Interface in the United States.     

浅谈城市消防安全分级制

引入分级制概念，概述了英国、日本、中国香港和美国的城市消防分级制总体状况，着重介绍了美国在分级时所考虑的特征、对应的扣分值和所涉及的条款，包括供水、消防局、消防通讯、防火安全控制和补充条款环境、气候等因素及应用范围，进而提出了在我国开展消防安全分级制的必要性。     

Evaluation of Fire Protection Performance of Eight Countries Based on Fire Statistics: An Application of Data Envelopment Analysis

To provide a view of countries’ relative fire protection efficiency from an international perspective, this study conducted an evaluation of fire protection performance of eight countries (i.e. Denmark, Japan, Norway, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States) based on the fire statistics from 2000 to 2008 released by the World Fire Statistic Center. Three inputs and two undesirable outputs were determined. After applying a transformation to both undesirable outputs, the overall efficiency and pure technical efficiency were acquired using two basic models of data envelopment analysis, respectively. Thereafter, the scale efficiency was calculated and the results were analyzed. It indicates that international technical exchange and cooperation in fire protection are needed for these eight countries. According to their status, Singapore and Slovenia could be set as good examples; Denmark, Norway, and United Kingdom need to reallocate their resources and refine the operation mode; United States should reduce the scale properly; Japan and Sweden need both scale increase and technique adjustment. An increasing trend is believed to exist for the OTE, PTE, and SE means of countries. However, further work is needed to improve and enlarge the dataset to obtain more accurate, wide, and applicable results.     

A design framework for small parks in ultra-urban,metropolitan, suburban and small town settings

Public parks contribute to neighbourhood quality of life, promote a more public daily life, serve as important focal points for neighbourhoods, and provide access to nearby nature as part of the built environment. Parks have a special role in the range of public space as a part of sustainable land use planning and development. Good design helps position them for relevant cultural and ecological roles. This research identified design principles that good, small urban parks share – including accessibility, specificity, authenticity, functionality, and adaptability – applicable in smaller cities, towns, and lower density areas. The framework was subsequently tested using interviews, remote and observational analysis in locations representing this variety of settings in the Southeastern, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeastern United States.     

倡导中的美国分用途供水系统

美国现存供水管网系统的管径是按照消防用水最大流量确定的.由于现在火灾频率已变得很低,使得管网流速变缓,导致供水被输送到用户端时水质下降、甚至恶化.为此,美国已开始倡导并应用分用途供水的双管道供水系统,以小管径的不锈钢管输送直饮水,并保留传统管道作为消防等非饮用水之用.这样不仅可以达到供应直饮水的目的,而且可大大降低非饮用水的处理成本.另外,中水也可纳入传统管道系统,使分用途供水第二条管道铺设成本有所降低.     

大学与国家公园的合作伙伴关系：课堂、户外实验室与世界之窗

2016年美国国家公园系统庆祝其成立100周年。在过去的100年间,作为国家公园的合作伙伴,美国的大学一直致力于为国家公园提供科学、教育和培训方面的支持。在中小学阶段,国家公园就成为学生们的学习场所。大学生在读期间会以实习生和季节工的身份参加国家公园的实践。研究生在完成论文和论文项目时为国家公园提供必要的研究,而所有参与者也就成了传递国家公园价值的更好的老师。这种支持有助于实现公园保护目标、解决公园面临的问题。同时,为在校学生和毕业后的学生提供了丰富学习经验的平台。为此还成立了专门的行政机构,以促进学校与公园的沟通、签订合约、建立合作伙伴。美国的大学与国家公园共同创造了一种有利于学术研究和管理实践的强有力合作伙伴关系,为世界以及中国国家公园体制的建设树立了很好的榜样。     

HOUSING REHABILITATION IMPACTS ON NEIGHBORHOOD STABILITy IN A DECLINING INDUSTRIAL CITy1

This study explores the impacts of publicly and privately funded housing rehabilitation efforts in Cleveland, Ohio. The results show that (1) selective census tracts receiving publicly funded home owner rehabilitation assistance did not experience demographic, economic or property stabilization; (2) private borrowing for housing renovation increases as the number of home owners, median gross rents, median family incomes, median values of owner-occupied housing and median sales-to-median assessed market ratios increase and (3) heterogeneous populations, poverty incomes, high unit vacancies, high tax delinquencies and housing demolitions decrease home owner propensities to borrow for repairs and maintenance. Many neighborhoods have experienced incumbent upgrading, but housing disinvestment and property tax delinquency threatens neighborhood stability. Public intercession is unlikely to influence these real estate market processes because housing disinvestment is merely symptomatic of a deeper economic malaise. Only a dramatic economic upturn can possibly slow housing disinvestment. Otherwise, housing unit removal shall continue unabated, inevitably wrecking neighborhoods and frustrating public efforts.     

Criteria for acceptability for use with quantitative approaches to fire safety

Quantitative approaches to estimating individual and societal risk in the nuclear industry, the chemical and fuel process industries and in building design are considered. Particular attention is paid to what have been proposed as target levels for acceptability of risk in these fields. Available data on multiple fatality fire occurrence in the United Kingdom, the United States and worldwide are examined. On the basis of this data a total societal fire risk for the U.K. is proposed. This, together with information on the number of premises at risk, allows target probabilities to be defined for premises of different size. These range from about 10^?6 per annum, for premises where five or more people may be killed in a fire, to 10^?7 to 10^?8 per annum for premises where one hundred or more may be killed. These might be used with models of risk analysis aimed at estimating actual probabilities. These target values are compared with those used in other areas. Consideration is also given to the evaluation of the weightings used in points schemes and the development of targets of acceptability where such methods are employed.     

Fire development experience in soviet industrial buildings

As part of the Cooperative Agreement on Housing and Other Construction, signed by the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1974, reciprocal visits are made by United States and Soviet teams concerned with building firesafety and related problems. A highlight of these visitations is a symposium on a relevant fire problem at which each side updates the other. The National Bureau of Standards, the lead agency for the United States team, is headed by R. S. Levine, Chief of the NBS Fire Resources Division. During the symposium in July, 1982, the following paper was presented by the Soviet team.     

Recent changes in aggregate fire loss indices

The objective of this article concerns the relative position of the various countries, as related to fire loss comparisons. The World Health Organization values appear to present the most consistent basis for comparison among a wide group of nations. Note: The investigations reported in this paper were supported by the United States Fire Administration, National Fire Data Center under contract No. EMW-C-0655. Points of view or opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the United States Fire Administration.     

Knowledge management: An application to wildfire prevention planning

Residential encroachment into wildland areas places an additional burden on fire management activities. Prevention programs, fuel management efforts, and suppression strategies, previously employed in wildland areas, require modification for protection of increased values at risk in this interface area. Knowledge-based computer systems are being investigated as knowledge management tools for the organization, synthesis, and application of information pertinent to fire science utilization. Many such systems contain expertise which has been captured from human experts and symbolically encoded for automatic manipulation by computer. Two systems, fire characteristics prediction and initial-attack force dispatch, have been developed elsewhere using this approach. This paper describes a third project, which is currently being developed for wildfire prevention planning. Initial efforts in elicitation of knowledge from experts have produced several benefits prior to system implementation. Results to date in fire management are encouraging, and provide support for the future potential of these methods for the management of knowledge gained from fire research.     

Housing Policy And The Underclass: The United Kingdom,Germany, and the Netherlands

ABSTRACT: The urban underclass has gained considerable currency as a concept to describe the changing face of poverty in the United States. Locating the urban underclass within the theoretical framework of citizenship and social class, this paper broadens conceptualizations of the urban underclass to allow a comparative analysis. Using the conceptualization developed, the author analyzes the role of housing in the social and spatial segregation and isolation that have been the hallmarks of the urban underclass in the United States, as well as in the Netherlands, Germany, and England. After comparing the divergent housing policies in the three European countries, the author examines local-level data in one old industrial city in each country. While there is some spatial concentration of poor and minority populations, the neighborhoods in question remain ethnically heterogeneous and do not lack social institutions. In short, they are far removed from the US hyperghetto.